Secret Pentagon Documents Leaker Demands To Be Treated Like Trump
Top secret Pentagon documents leaker Jacques Teixeira has demanded his release from prison on the grounds that former President Donald Trump and co-defendant Walt Nauta are out and awaiting trial for mishandling classified White House documents.
The 21-year-old Massachusetts National Guard security guard has been behind bars since his April 13 arrest over allegations that he leaked classified military documents related to Russia’s war in Ukraine and other sensitive national security topics on the social media platform Discord.
Magistrate Judge David Hennessy granted plaintiffs’ request to keep Teixeira in federal custody in May after the Justice Department argued that the cyber systems expert could obstruct justice or flee the country if released.
“Exaggeration of its danger to national security”
In court papers filed Monday, Teixeira’s lawyers said the 21-year-old did not have the financial ability or motivation to flee, and argue that the Justice Department “grossly exaggerates Mr. Teixeira’s national security risk.”
They also noted that Special Counsel Jack Smith did not seek the arrest of the 77-year-old former president or his aide despite the “extraordinary means at their disposal to flee the United States.”
Former President Trump and his organization own real estate in several foreign countries, and former President Trump can access a private plane and travel, however, the risk of fleeing posed by their knowledge of national security information, and their abnormal ability to flee, did not even lead to a request to surrender their passports. Teixeira’s lawyers say.
They add: “The government’s divergent approach to pre-trial release in these cases makes it clear that its argument for pre-trial detention of Mr. Teixeira based on the information he allegedly holds is illusory.”
And last month, a federal grand jury indicted Teixeira on six counts of willful retention and leakage of national defense secrets.
